Topic: Student Tracking

The University of Alabama has implemented a custom version of the "Fan Maker" app to track the location of students inside the football stadium. Students are rewarded with loyalty points for staying through the entire game, addressing Coach Nick Saban's complaints about empty student sections. Similarly, the University of North Carolina is reportedly using tracking technology to ensure student-athletes attend their classes, raising concerns about the normalization of surveillance on campus.

The viral FaceApp, which uses AI to age users' faces, is criticized as a "spy app" designed to place advertising IDs and harvest data for brokers. While public concern focuses on Russian ownership, the real risk is the continuous monitoring of browser habits. This data is sold to financial institutions to refine systems that manage millennial student debt and consumer behavior.

Amy Rogstadt-Guerdera of the Data Quality Campaign argues that collecting "actionable data" is essential for parents to know if their children are on track for the "knowledge economy." She claims that tracking third-grade reading levels can predict high school graduation rates. Skeptics view these buzzwords as a cover for invasive student profiling.